


Homecoming

by bluestbluetoeverblue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Parent Molly Weasley, F/F, New Epilogue, PTSD, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26833624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestbluetoeverblue/pseuds/bluestbluetoeverblue
Summary: Eight years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Ginny Weasley returns home feeling nervous and a little brave. Or maybe just reckless.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 13
Kudos: 100





	Homecoming

Ginny Weasley does not think about the past as she sits alone in the compartment whirling through the countryside. She does not imagine herself on another train headed to another destination, and she does not think about the things that happened there. Instead, she closes her eyes and tries to catch some sleep until the conductor calls out for London. Then she stands in a familiar train station with a bag slung over her shoulder and a pit in her stomach.

There really is no reason for her not to be happy to be home, but the truth is that Ginny isn’t sure what home even means anymore. She leaves the station with a crowd of Muggles, not caring that many of them do a double take at the broom stuck through the straps of her bag. They are not the worst sort of stares she has gotten. The plan was to fly to the Burrow, but something keeps her grounded in the city. Maybe it’s the fact that she hasn’t had any mail from the Burrow in nearly a year, so when she received the wedding invitation, it had planted a seed of dread at knowing she had to go home. Now the time has come, she is here, and all she wants is to turn around and get on any train that can take her far away.

It is barely noon, so, figuring she can get away with a few more hours of avoidance, Ginny begins to wander. She has always felt comfortable falling into the crowded streets of Muggle cities, and today she lets the gray mist and shuffling bodies of London distract her. She does not know where she is headed until she is nearly there, then the tall brick facade of 12 Grimmauld Place stands before her, silver serpent knocker and all. Ginny isn’t sure what brought her here in particular since she has only been inside a handful of times. She isn’t even sure if anyone lives there anymore until the door opens and—

“Ginny?” Harry steps out the front door looking much the same as he always has—tall and lanky, unruly black curls, glasses somehow a bit askew. He peers down the steps at her, a look of surprise on his face.

“Um, hi.” She doesn’t know what else to say, so she just gives an unsure little wave. Harry meets her at the bottom of the steps, and as they stand there awkwardly together, she notices how deep the shadows under his eyes are.

“I guess you’re back for the wedding, then?” Harry asks, and she nods, though that does not explain why she is standing on his doorstep. “George invited me too, and I was going to go if, uh, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, you should go.” She smiles, and Harry smiles back, and at least she is distracted from the pit in her stomach by the tortuous awkwardness of the whole situation.

It is hard to remember who she even was when she was seventeen, let alone why she thought she was in love with Harry. They are both leagues away from those kids that thought they could make all the terrible things they had seen better for each other, but the depth of that change somehow makes the distance between them so much more palpable. She tries to summon some of her usual poise and takes a deep breath.

“I guess I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for how things ended with us.” She had not come to talk to Harry, but maybe she really does need to say this. She forces herself to look him in the eye. “When I left to join the Harpies, I didn’t mean to drop you the way I did. I was just trying to get away, honestly, and I’m sorry if I hurt you in the process.”

“Thanks, but I didn’t exactly chase after you.” Harry puts his hands in his pockets and bites his lip. “Don’t think it matters much now anyways.”

Ginny’s heart leaps into her throat. “So Ron told you?”

“Told me?”

“That I don’t fancy blokes.”

Harry’s eyes go wide for a split second, and his freckled cheeks blush. Ginny takes a deep breath. You would think that after all this time being herself around the Harpies and even telling her family that it would be easier to say out loud.

“No, well, um Ron and I haven’t really spoken in ages so I didn’t know but, uh, congratulations.” On the last word, he squints awkwardly as if he wishes he could take what he said back, and the whole thing is so indisputably Harry. It’s well-intentioned, honest, and kind, and she can’t help but laugh. Perhaps they still do know each other after all.

Before either of them have a chance to say anything else, a bundle of rainbow striped sweater and reddish-brown curls comes running towards them. The little toddler latches onto Harry’s leg with an excited laugh. 

“Is that Rosie?” Ginny’s question is answered when Hermione comes up right after her, looking hurried with her black robes flowing behind her. She is about to say something to Harry when her eyes fall on Ginny instead.

“Ginny, you’re back. For the wedding I suppose. It’s been so long, hasn’t it?” She says it all in one breath, her face soft and smiling despite the flurry she arrived in. “I wish I had time for more than to say hello, but I’m rather late for an important meeting.” She turns to Harry. “Thanks again, I’ll only be a few hours.” She stoops to give Rose a kiss on the cheek and is off as quickly as she arrived. Ginny drags her gaze back to the toddler that Harry now holds in his arms.

“Hi, Rosie.” She gives her niece a big smile. “Do you remember me?” Rose gives her a shy look, retreating into Harry’s shoulder and putting a pain through Ginny’s chest. “You’re babysitting?” Ginny asks, giving Harry a curious look.

“Oh yeah, Rose and I are best mates, aren’t we?” He gives Rose a silly look that makes her collapse into giggles before he turns back to Ginny. “I help out sometimes during her weeks when I’m not working too. It’s nice having someone else in this old house anyway.” He gestures back at 12 Grimmauld Place’s slightly menacing front.

“You’re still an auror, then?” Harry nods. “It’s strange to think of you two working for the Ministry after all the trouble it gave us during…” She doesn’t say the war, but Harry knows.

“It’s better now, not perfect, but not what it was then. Mostly thanks to Hermione. She works harder than anyone to fix it at every level, and at this rate she’ll be the youngest Minister in history.”

“I guess I’ll have to stop hating the Ministry so much if that happens.” Ginny feels her face warm for no reason as Harry chuckles.

“When she says a few hours, it’s usually most of the night. Fancy a dinner with Rose and me?”

The offer feels genuine, but Ginny shakes her head. “I have to get home eventually. Thanks though.” With a wave for Rose, she picks up her bag and heads back down the street, not looking back. After turning a corner into an empty alley with less visibility, Ginny pulls her wand from her coat and begins to focus on the Burrow, closing her eyes to picture the view of the sitting room from the entryway with great clarity, the step of the worn wooden floor beneath her, the warm scent of something baking in the air. She feels something like a gust of wind and hears a familiar voice say, “Blimey.” When she opens her eyes, she is standing in the doorway of the house she knows so well, looking into the kitchen where Ron sits at the table kneading a strange pink dough that fills the Burrow with the scent of horseradish and bubblegum. “We weren’t expecting you till tomorrow,” Ron says as Ginny sets her things down in the sitting room.

The house looks largely the same as she remembers it but with a few pieces of new furniture and far fewer people, which feels both comforting and unnerving. Ginny certainly doesn’t feel like the same girl as she stands in it. She walks past the clock with its hands scattered and tries not to look too closely as hers settles back onto home.

“Do I want to know what that is?” Ginny asks.

“Not yet,” Ron answers as the dough begins to pop and sizzle without invocation. Ginny eyes it, keeping her distance. Ron has a way with confections, but it’s finding the right level of joke in it that he has never quite gotten the hang of in her opinion. She takes a seat at the opposite end of the long table.

“I ran into Hermione and Rose in London,” she says. Ron makes a hmph sound and fixates on the dough, which has now turned blood red. “Hermione seemed busy.”

“Hermione’s always busy.”

“You know most people don’t end up with their Hogwarts sweethearts.”

“You obviously didn’t,” Ron says, still focused on his dough.

“Where’s Mum?” Ginny asks, jaw clenched. As if on cue, Molly Weasley comes bustling down the staircase with three baskets levitating in front of her. “Hi, Mum.”

“Ginny.” Molly follows the baskets into the sitting room. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“I sent an owl,” Ginny says. “The wedding’s only in two days. I didn’t expect it to be so quiet around here. Where is everyone?”

“Bill and Percy won’t be coming until the day of the wedding, of course, and Charlie arrives tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“Excited for a night of blazing conversation with me and Mum?” Ron says somewhat under his breath but just loud enough for Ginny to hear as she stands and walks to the sitting room where Molly is folding laundry. No matter how many Weasleys are home, she is somehow always folding laundry, Ginny thinks.

After she stands there for a moment, Molly finally looks her in the eye for the first time, an expectant expression on her face, as if she is waiting for Ginny to say something. When it becomes apparent that she has nothing to say, Molly returns to her folding and chimes, “Your hair always was so nice when it was long.”

Ginny’s hands go involuntarily to her red hair, which sits just above her shoulders in a blunt cut. She has worn it this length for ages. “Is Dad here?” she asks.

“If you came home more often you might know that your father works late on Thursdays.” Molly’s tone is not particularly cold, but it cuts Ginny all the same. “I’ll make your old bed up after I am finished with this. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow at least.”

“Don’t bother.” Ginny turns to pick up her things once more. “I was going to stay somewhere else anyway.” She flees the place that once felt so much like home, traveling instead to a cottage not far outside of London, arriving just as the sun begins to set. Angelina is the one who answers the door, a wide smile on her face as they embrace.

“I know you’ve got a million things going on, but could I stay here tonight?”

“You really have to ask?” George says as he walks in the room. He grabs Ginny into a hug, and her eyes are wet as they bring her inside.

Ginny has never actually been to their cottage before and is amazed to find that it has the same sense of coziness that Ginny always loved about the Burrow. It had surprised her at first when George told her that he and Angelina were dating, but the more she thought about it, the more it felt right. Angelina had seemed intimidating when Ginny first started at Hogwarts all those years ago, but after the older Gryffindor girls on the Quidditch team had taken her in, Angelina became a sort of badass godmother. Coming back to watch her marry George meant seeing two of her favorite people find happiness together, and the more she watches them that night at their house, the more she feels that they have found a real match in each other. They are both gentle people with soft touches, but Angelina’s no nonsense side brings out George’s mischief again too.

Ginny feels so much relief seeing George happy, especially when she goes to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes the next morning and gets to see him in his element. It surprises her too how at ease Ron seems in the shop too. He spends much of his time in the kitchens baking, but even on the floor of the shop he has found a real passion that she never saw in him for anything except maybe wizarding chess. It does give her a strange sense of being left out, and she feels every one of the six years she has been away.

She goes for a walk down Diagon Alley in the middle of the day, and when she comes back she runs into Hermione outside of the shop, having just handed Rose over to Ron for his week with her. Hermione is wearing a black Ministry robe over a purple jumper, and the autumn air brings out a pink in her dark cheeks as they say hello.

“I’m sorry I had to rush away yesterday,” Hermione says with a warm smile. “It really is nice to see you. How long are you in town?”

“Only for the wedding, I think.”

“The Harpies must keep you busy.”

“Not as busy as you. Harry told me you’re just as dedicated with the Ministry as you were back in the day at school.”

“Well, I just want the Wizarding World to be better than it was when we were kids. It was so exciting to find out I was a witch, you know, but then everything that seemed so beautiful turned out to be dark and corrupted.”

“I feel better knowing there are people like you trying to make it better,” Ginny says, shifting her weight. “I certainly don’t do anything nearly that meaningful.”

“Don’t say that. Quidditch brings so many people joy, and that’s important. There’s no point fixing a world without things to make it worth living in. I love my work, and you love yours, right?”

“I do,” Ginny answers honestly. “For a long time Quidditch was the only thing I felt like I had. After everything that happened, it seemed like the only thing that could be good. Now it’s given me this whole new life, and I don’t know who I would be without it.”

“That’s actually quite beautiful.” Ginny finds herself holding onto Hermione’s warm gaze a bit too long, and it makes her blush for a reason she cannot quite name. They break eye contact at the same time, Hermione looking back at WWW then to Ginny again. “I was going to have dinner and drinks with Harry tonight, if you wanted to come. If you want a break from your family maybe.”

“Are you sure Harry wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course. Harry will be pleased, I promise. You could meet us at his place around seven?”

Ginny nods more than is necessary as Hermione smiles and sets off on her way. Despite having been home for barely a day, she does look forward to an evening away from her family. While WWW has the same bright and fun energy as it is supposed to, there is still a part of her that expects to see Fred beside George at the counter, and she feels an odd sense of guilt whenever she looks at Ron. The last thing she needs is her mother’s disapproving looks over a family dinner, so she freshens up back at George and Angelina’s and makes her way back to 12 Grimmauld Place. When she rings the doorbell, she does not hear the screams of the estate’s former owner. Instead, she finds a well-refurbished home that has had much of the darkness scrubbed from its surface. Granted, the vintage wallpaper, rugs, and drapes are still heavy with their deep tones of emerald and black. Now, however, the rooms feel almost inviting, more like the worn old common room at Hogwarts but with a different color scheme.

Harry and Hermione are already set up in the dining room. As Ginny takes off her cloak she notices that Harry either could not remove the Black family tapestry or did not wish to, and she can see the burnt off names from where she stands. The dinner is mostly savouries and alcohol, which Ginny doesn’t mind. She should feel uncomfortable spending the evening with her ex-boyfriend and her brother’s ex-wife, but it is actually quite fun. Ginny likes listening to the two of them rant about Ministry workings, and after a glass of wine Hermione starts to get giggly, which Ginny finds adorable for a reason she does not wish to name.

Harry and Hermione have an endearing dynamic, and Ginny gets the sense that the distance that developed between each of them with Ron only deepened their own friendship. After they have all nearly emptied their glasses and Harry is peppering her with questions about what it is like playing professional Quidditch, Hemione heads to the kitchen for another bottle. “Do you two do this a lot? You seem to have quite a lot of fun together.”

“We’re not snogging if that’s what you mean,” Harry says. Ginny chokes on her last sip of wine, and Harry grins. “We worked in the same department for a while during the divorce, and she needed a friend. So did I honestly.”

“I still think of her as that girl who hung around my brother and seemed to know everything about everything.”

“Know-it-all is the phrase I used to use,” Harry nods. “And bossy. But that was before she saved my life a dozen times by knowing way more than us.”

“You know I still like to picture her punching Malfoy sometimes.” 

He laughs and narrows his eyes at Ginny a bit, brushing the hair out of his face to show that famous lightning scar. She averts her eyes and changes the subject.

“Malfoy’s an auror too now, isn’t he? What’s that like?”

Harry shrugs. “Draco and I had it out a long time ago. He’ll never be my favorite person, but he was as manipulated as we were. More, probably. At least he seems to be trying to do better than his father.” Harry glances around at the house they sit in, perhaps feeling the same weight of the generations that built it, which Ginny thinks will never be fully cleaned from the walls. She suddenly regrets bringing up the past.

“You always were suited to be an auror,” she says. “They say you’re one of the best.”

“Mm.” Harry takes a bite of a crisp and avoids responding.

“Unless you don’t actually want to be? You’re not leaving, are you?”

“Of course not, I’m Harry Potter.” He puts a bitter emphasis on his own name. “What else is the Boy Who Lived going to do with his life?”

“Something that makes him happy,” Ginny answers, thinking of what Hermione had said that morning in Diagon Alley. Quidditch might bring people joy, but it also made her feel like herself. Already, her hands were itching for a broomstick. Just being in the air could undo a tense conversation with her mother, and the truth is, the first time people began recognizing her in public as a Harpy, her entire body had been flooded with relief that that was why they knew her. She wanted to leave her past behind, but every time someone asked her about that day, it was a reminder that she would never be able to forget what happened. She would always be the girl who fought at the battle, the youngest Weasley sibling, Harry Potter’s brave girlfriend.

“I wish it were that simple,” Harry says. He takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes, the skin beneath them tinged purple. Ginny understands sleeplessness. The nightmares still keep her awake sometimes too.

She grabs his arm across the table urgently, without thinking, and says, “Harry, you’ve given enough of yourself to them.” He looks at her with wide eyes. “You saved us all more than any person should have to, and you were a child. You don’t have to save them anymore.”

They both look at each other for a long moment, green eyes on brown.

“Uh, I think I’ll go see what’s keeping Hermione,” Ginny fumbles after a second, releasing his arm. Harry nods, pushing his glasses up his nose. What happened to the smooth and confident Ginny? The rest of the Harpies would hardly believe it was her. Something about being back here made her a fifteen year old again.

She goes to the kitchen and finds Hermione standing at the counter scribbling away at a scrap of paper. She looks up when Ginny enters and gets a sheepish expression.

“Sorry, I just had a bit of an epiphany about something at work, and I wanted to get it down.”

“I always really admired that about you, you know. How dedicated you are.” Ginny leans her arms on the counter, feeling brave and a little reckless. She is fifteen again for sure. Hermione straightens up with a smile and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“You may be the only one,” she says. “But I think you’ve got it turned around if you think you need more dedication. You’ve always been relentless too. In a good way, I mean.” She rushes to qualify the description, but Ginny just grins.

“When we were kids, I would have loved to hear someone tell me that.” She crosses her arms in front of her chest involuntarily. Even before all the darkness sept into their school years, she had always felt like too much. Too much for her mother, for Ron and his impenetrable gang, for all the boys she dated.

She doesn’t notice Hermione watching her. Hermione scoots a bit closer and says in a quiet voice, “Sometimes I wish we were closer back then. That we might have been friends instead.”

Ginny looks up, her pale skin growing warm, and she thinks that it must be the wine that makes the confession sound so very momentous, even though she has only had one glass. Hermione peers at her with golden brown eyes and an indecipherable expression.

“Then you wouldn’t have Harry as a mate, or Rose even.” Ginny regrets the words before she is even done saying them.

“No,” Hermione says, looking down at her bare feet. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

They fall into a silence that Ginny does not know how to climb out of. There are words sitting in her throat that she cannot say, and the air around her grows taut and suffocating. When Hermione looks back at her, there is something new in her face, a slight downturn at the corner of her lips, a dampened brightness in her eyes. Without thinking, Ginny puts her hand on Hermione’s. They look at each other, neither moving away, and all the words in Ginny’s throat crumble into nothing because Ginny’s hands are holding Hermione’s face, and there is a hand on Ginny’s hip, and she is kissing the girl she has wanted to kiss for so long without even realizing she wanted to.

It only lasts two heartbeats, and when they pull apart, Ginny feels like someone has set fire beneath her. Hermione looks breathless and opens her mouth to say something, but Ginny is already out the door and down the front hall. She runs past the dining and sitting rooms, out the entrance and down the front steps, leaving her cloak and scarf behind. She doesn’t stop running for a good three blocks and even then only slows to a hurried walk. Her hair whipping behind her in the brisk night, she tries to sort through the thousand thoughts racing around her mind. What was she thinking kissing Hermione? Hermione! Ron’s ex-wife! Someone she has barely even spoken to since they were both girls.

By the time she is back in bed on George and Angelina’s couch, the guilt has set in. Coming back was difficult enough, and now she’s gone and made everything harder for everyone. She is going to have to hope that no one finds out what an absolute fool she is and apologize to Hermione. Except that Ginny doesn’t want to apologize. Not for kissing her and not for wanting to. Three days ago, her life had been simple. There was Quidditch and her team like family and sweet witches in French pubs who had never known her back when she was broken. Now, everything is a mess she doesn’t know how to begin to untangle.

This is how she ends up at Hogwarts, staring up at the front entrance in misty morning light and taking great effort to remind her lungs to keep breathing in air. It is still early, so when she finally gets the nerve to go in, she can see from the entrance that the great hall is empty. She stands on the stone floor staring up at the castle. It looks exactly the same as it always has, which makes her feel a bit dizzy. Her heart takes up permanent residence in her throat as she walks the familiar halls, her feet carrying her over the same cracked stones and moving staircases that she has traversed a thousand times before. She could walk these paths in the dark with her eyes closed. Everywhere she looks, her mind makes ghosts out of memories, and she is grateful not to meet any real apparitions before she makes it to where she is going. The office door is not quite closed, and she pushes it open gently, poking her head in.

Ever the early riser, Neville looks up from his seat at his desk, reading glasses perched on his nose, a quill still poised over the scroll in front of him as his eyes alight on Ginny. He gives an excited “Hey!” as he stands from the desk while she steps into the cozy little office. He meets her with a hug, and Ginny is glad she braved the haunting halls. 

They stand on a large old rug with deep floral designs, and there is little to the cramped office besides the desk, plush sitting chairs for students, and an abundance of botanical drawings and specimens hanging on two walls. Another wall is complete bookshelves, and the fourth is made of a line of windows that look out onto the greenhouses. Fitting, she thinks, for the herbology professor.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Neville says, gesturing in the air as if to indicate the entire place. Ginny answers with a reluctant smile, sticking her hands into the pockets of her jumper.

“I wasn’t exactly planning on it, but I need to talk to someone who isn’t a Weasley and has never dated one.”

Neville chuckles, and she thinks that of all the people for her to have kept in touch with over the years, she is glad it was him. She likes reading letters detailing the life he is building near the old castle, and he has season tickets to her Quidditch matches, making post-game celebrations much more fun. This, however, is the first time she has ever come to see him here. She knows that it is healing for him to be there for students in ways no one had been for him, and he knows that she cannot face the halls where they had lost so much. Until now.

“You want to go into Hogsmeade?” Neville asks. “Might be easier to talk away from the castle, and I don’t have class for a few hours.”

“Thanks.” He grabs his bag and a sweater, and together they head out. They take a different route than Ginny took coming in in order to avoid Peeves making a mess in one corridor, and it takes them past a display that Ginny has not seen before. There is a golden plaque hanging in an alcove that catches her eye, and they stop for a moment. On the top are the animal insignias of each House woven together, beneath it in script The Fallen Fifty, and beneath that two columns of names Ginny does not read. Her throat is dry as her eyes skirt over the other items in the display case, but what really catches her attention are the scattered objects beneath the display case. There are all sorts of things; House flags and family crests, flowers and candy, enchanted candles, and other objects of memorial. Ginny cannot help but notice a handful of sweets from a Skiving Snackbox, and she does not breathe fully until they are out of the castle and in the misty autumn air.

The Leaky Cauldron is still an hour shy of opening, but Neville pulls a key from his robes to let them in. They can hear a kettle boiling upstairs, and Hannah’s light footsteps as they get comfortable around a table in the quiet pub. She’ll be happy to see Hannah too, but Ginny is glad Neville doesn’t call her down yet, instead sitting at the table with an easy expression and waiting. Ginny isn’t quite sure where to begin.

After a moment, Neville asks, “So how terrible has your mum been?”

“Not as bad as last Christmas, but somehow colder than all the time since she stopped sending owls.” Ginny shrugs, grateful for the temporary reprieve. Her relationship with her mother has never been easy, but after Molly outright told her to quit the team and move home last year, things had become particularly frosty. It didn’t help that Ginny decided the last two minutes of that visit were the perfect time to come out then flee.

“So if that’s not what’s bothering you…” Neville raises his eyebrows.

“Well, I ran into Harry and Hermione the other day, and we hung out for a little while, and then something weird happened.”

“What something weird?”

“I, uh, kissed Hermione?”

“Oh.” Neville leans back in his chair for a second, nodding to himself. “Alright.”

“That’s all you have to say? Aren’t you going to tell me that I put her in a terrible situation and made everything harder for myself like a complete idiot?”

“Did you think I was the person to come to if you wanted to hear that?” They meet each other’s eyes for a beat, and Neville tilts his head at her. “How did it feel? To kiss her, I mean.”

“It felt stupid,” Ginny says in exasperation. “And thoughtless and reckless and really really lovely like I’d probably been waiting years to do it.” She stops in a huff and crosses her arms over her chest. Neville smiles at her.

“What did she say when you did it?”

“I left before she could say anything. There are so many perfectly available witches for me to kiss, why did I have to choose her?”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Hermione wanted to kiss you too?”

“I’m her ex-husband’s sister, Neville. She did not want to kiss me.”

“You’re also a Quidditch star, heroine of the Wizarding World, and occasionally a decent friend.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I’m just saying, I know that running away is kind of your thing, but this time you might be running from something really good. She deserves to know how you feel.”

Ginny doesn’t say anything, and Neville does not push her. They go upstairs and have tea with Hannah and talk and laugh, and Ginny goes home feeling conflicted. Walking up the path to the Burrow, she finds her father in the barn tinkering with his Muggle projects. Ginny spends an hour or so helping him fiddle with a toaster that he is trying to enchant, and that at least feels familiar and easy. Then Charlie pops his head in, and Ginny is getting yet another hug as she breathes in the unmistakable smell of leather and dragon scale. He takes over as Arthur’s assistant, and Ginny goes to the house to grab something to eat. As she is walking into the kitchen, however, she runs into Molly.

“Charlie is here,” Ginny says cheerfully. “He’s out in the barn with Dad.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware, dear. Charlie writes frequently to update me on his whereabouts.”

Ginny stops dead in her tracks, staring at her mother, who continues on with her knitting. There is a pounding in Ginny’s chest. “Are you ever going to accept that I’m an adult?” The words come out harsh and disjointed in her anger.

Molly looks up calmly but with wide eyes and says, “Not when you speak like an insolent child.”

“Bill and Charlie and Percy all moved out and away, and you praised them for it like perfect little sons. Why can’t I have the same?”

“Because you’re being selfish, just like when you left us.”

“Selfish? Because I grew up? Because I earned a spot on one of the best Quidditch teams in the world? Or because I needed space to grieve?”

“You would understand if you had children one day.” Molly’s lips form a tight line. The pounding in Ginny’s chest turns bright and burning, and all she wants to do is race outside and take off into the sky. Her broom is at George’s, though, so she falls into the familiar steps of pounding up the stairs to her old room. She slams the door too for good measure, but it doesn’t make her feel any better as she sits fuming.

It doesn’t matter what she does, and it never will. Molly will always view her as an uncontrollable little girl who needs taming. It didn’t matter when she led an army or survived a war, when she pulled herself back together afterwards and became a star chaser who finally knew who she was. The truth is that Molly will never see that version of Ginny, will never know her the way Ginny knows herself.

As the anger begins to settle, she looks around at the room. It’s been kept the same as when she left it, polka dot sheets and all. There are still Weird Sisters and Harpies posters hanging on the walls. Ginny knows that there is also a magazine article about Harry that she embarrassingly cut out and hid in her hand me down copy of Hogwarts, A History, just as she knows that in a locked trunk in her closet sits her childhood diaries. After what happened in her first year, she couldn’t bear to look at them, let alone keep a diary ever again. Hanging on the closet doorknob is a green knit sweater. She grabs it and sits on the floor beside her bed, looking at the large hand stitched G that takes up the front of the sweater. She pulls it over her head, but it is much too large, hanging halfway down to her knees, the sleeves trailing well past her wrists.

Without thinking, a laugh comes bubbling out. She had almost forgotten the one Christmas when Molly accidentally switched up hers and George’s sweaters when wrapping them. Molly had tried to get them to switch back, but George refused, insisting to wear little Ginny’s as a crop top. Ginny didn’t mind; George’s lanky sweater had been much more cozy then, just as it is now as she snuggles into the hand-woven fabric.

Her mind drifts to the year Hermione spent knitting in the common room for the house elves. Ginny had been too nervous then to say much about it, but she had listened to a few of Hermione’s impassioned rants willingly and pinned a S.P.E.W. pin onto her robes. No one had noticed, of course, but it didn’t matter. She thinks of Hermione’s assertive voice, the tone of her laugh, the way her curls swirl around her face like a perfectly designed frame. Sitting in her abandoned room, snuggled up in George’s sweater, with the sounds of her family moving about downstairs, Ginny admits it to herself for the first time. She is in love with Hermione Granger.

She is in love, but she can’t afford to think that Hermione might feel something like that back. She’s done enough to her family. She can be in love, but she will not say anything. She will go to the wedding, and she will be happy for George and Angelina, and then she will go back to Wales and her life without anyone getting hurt except her.

***

The wedding is wildly beautiful, sweet and grand at the same time, just like George and Angelina, and as they take their first married kiss, Ginny sets off Wildfire Wizbangs over the altar without warning, causing a chaotic shout from the crowd and a grinning laugh from George. Ginny spends the first half of the reception eating with Bill, Fleur, and little Victoire, relieved to see them all even though they were at a match only a few months earlier, Victoire waving a Harpies flag with all her six year old might. Ginny spends the second half of the reception getting mildly intoxicated with Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet and dancing chaotically around the dancefloor. She hasn’t seen her Gryffindor girls in ages, but it’s just like she’s fifteen again and being introduced to spiked pumpkin juice and Muggle poetry and girls kissing girls. She doesn’t even mind when she notices Molly giving her a warning look.

Ginny really does have fun even though she also spends the entire reception avoiding Hermione. It isn’t too difficult considering that the tent is packed with people. There are plenty of Weasleys and Prewetts and Johnsons and school friends to keep between her and Hermione throughout the night. The closest call is when Hermione catches her eyes from the other side of a levitating pyramid of champagne glasses, but Ginny manages to slip away and fold herself into the crowd.

After the party begins to wind down, she is sitting at a table with Katie, Alicia, Neville, and Hannah when George and Angelina come up to them, beaming with arms wrapped around each other. “Anyone up for a nightcap?” George asks.

“Shouldn’t you two be off on honeymoon?” Neville asks with a crooked smile.

“Greece will still be there tomorrow,” Angelina answers.

“Now that all the bores have gone to bed and Mum’s had her wedding,” George says with a mischievous glint in his voice, “we figured it’s time for a good old fashioned Gryffindor party.”

There are nods all around the table and an excited shout from Katie, who, with her tie undone and blonde hair falling loose over a striped suit jacket, already looks basically the same as she did when instigating the worst parties at school.

“Good, good. We’re rounding up a bunch of people, so meet at Harry’s place whenever.” The newlyweds walk off to recruit some more attendees. Alicia is already howling about music choices in Ginny’s ear, and even Neville and Hannah seem excited, so Ginny doesn’t have a choice. Bad idea or not, though, the five of them are soon climbing the steps to 12 Grimmauld Place to find that a somewhat laidback party has already begun inside. It is not nearly as crowded as the wedding tent, but there is a fair amount of people, most of them having at least overlapped with Ginny’s time at Hogwarts. Of course there’s Ron, Charlie, George and Angelina, and a somewhat uncomfortable looking Percy with a woman Ginny doesn’t recognize. Lee Jordan, Patricia Stimpson, Lisa Turpin, that Slytherin Vaisey, and Ginny could have sworn she caught a glimpse of Luna Lovegood turning into the kitchen, but she couldn’t be sure due to the orange feather hat covering most of the head.

Ginny notices Harry and Hermione standing in the far corner of the sitting room and turns a sharp corner down a hall, completely ditching Alicia in the middle of a conversation that Neville has to cover for. They regroup in the kitchen, everyone somehow still hungry after the reception dinner. As music starts to spill down the hall, Ginny settles into bouncing between her friends and trying to enjoy herself again. All she has to do is keep her distance for one night, then she can go back to Wales and forget that anything ever happened. She can have her Quidditch and her world all of her own, and Hermione can have the Ministry and Rose. They would forget about what happened, and no one would need to know. That is, until Ron comes charging up to her and shouts, “YOU SNOGGED HERMIONE?”

The rest of the people in the room turn to look at Ron’s anger-reddened face as Ginny sputters. From the other side of the room, she can hear a drunken Alicia shout, “What!” as Katie cheers.

“Ron, I uh, I can explain.”

“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” He takes the drink she has been sipping on from her hand and tips it over her head before stomping off.

“Are you alright?” Hannah asks over the music, trying uselessly to dab at Ginny’s wet hair with a kitchen towel. Ginny nods numbly, grateful somewhere in the back of her mind that Ron had been too drunk to duel.. Neville takes her to the bathroom and does a drying spell on her clothes, but it does not clean the champagne from her face and hair.

“Come on, then. Let’s hear it,” Ginny says finally, sitting on the edge of the porcelain tub.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Neville replies, tucking his wand back into the inside of his jacket.

“I made a mess.”

“Mhm.”

“Now my brother hates me. My whole family too, probably.”

“Doubtful.”

“People just don’t go around kissing their brothers’ ex-wives, Neville! I can’t even imagine what my mum's going to say.”

“Do you really care what your mum says?”

This catches her up for a moment, and she doesn’t know how to answer, instead grabbing her now dry sweater and heading for the door. “I’ve got to go, I’ll see you later.”

She only makes it halfway down a long hall when she sees Percy wandering around ahead. That being the absolute last thing she needs right now, she takes a sharp right into a hallway and comes face to face with Hermione. Ginny’s breath catches in her throat.

“Could I talk to you for a minute?” Hermione asks before stepping through a doorway. For a second, Ginny considers running. Then she steps after her and closes the door, finding herself in a room with heavy patterned wallpaper and an abundance of instruments, including a grand piano and a gilded standing harp. Hermione stands in a slightly rumpled pink dress, her cheeks flushed and face serious. Her brow is creased, and her hands are gripped tightly in front of her as they both stand motionless for a half a moment.

“I’m sorry about—” Ginny doesn’t get to finish because suddenly Hermione is kissing her, and Ginny is too surprised to do anything but lean into it. It leaves Ginny breathless.

When Hermione steps back, a small smile playing on her lips, she says, “I just needed to see something. What were you saying?”

“We can’t do this,” Ginny says, even though every part of her wants to do exactly this, again and again and again.

“Why can’t we?” Hermione is calm as she looks at her.

“Because you were married to my brother, and everyone is going to hate us.”

“Ron decided he was going to marry me when we were seventeen. I did love him then, but we were so young, and there was so much chaos all around us. I thought that it was the only way to make sense of it all, that after everything we had seen and done, I had to know what I wanted. I didn’t realize that we both had so much more growing up to do.”

“You’re still the girl that broke his heart. I can’t do this to him, or to my family.”

“If this isn’t something you want, then tell me, and I won’t ever bother you again. We can go back to the way things were.” Her eyes are dark and sincere, and Ginny knows from somewhere deep in her ribcage that things will never go back to the way they were. Hermione takes a step towards her, so that she can smell that unmistakable scent: floral perfume and ink and faded paper. “But if you want this, then it doesn’t matter what your family thinks. You deserve to be happy too. And,” she adds with a tracing smile, “your mother already doesn’t like me, so we might as well make it worthwhile.

“Ron’s never going to forgive me…” Ginny’s voice betrays the decision already being sealed in her chest, and Hermione smiles, reaching to take her hand.

“Ron’s hurt and drunk, but he’ll get past it eventually.”

“Alright.”

“Alright?” Hermione tilts her head, and Ginny finally lets herself smile.

“I guess I don’t have anything to lose”

Ginny Weasley and Hermione Granger leave the music room of 12 Grimmauld Place in the dark and early hours of morning, holding hands. George and Angelina have long since left, many of the party goers trickling out too. As Ginny and Hermione make their way through the house, they catch Neville and Hannah about to leave, both looking happy but exhausted. Neville straight out grins when he sees them, and he gives Ginny a nod before slipping out the front door. In the sitting room, the sun is beginning to rise through the high window. Alicia and Katia are curled up on an emerald-colored chase fast asleep, Katie’s suit jacket draped over Alicia. Most everyone else has cleared out, and the house is quiet. Hermione goes to the kitchen to find some coffee, planting a quick kiss on Ginny’s cheek as she goes, which leaves Ginny feeling warm and shiny as she walks down the hall.

She finds Harry in the foyer, draping a crocheted blanket over a passed out Charlie Weasley. Ginny catches Harry’s eye, and they sit together. Harry looks tired, but she’s not sure she’s ever actually seen him not looking tired. She knows the feeling.

“So you and Hermione sort it all out?” Harry asks, nodding to her face.

Ginny wipes a smear of Hermione’s lipstick off her cheek with a sheepish smile. “I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable considering, well, everything.”

“Nah,” Harry says with a bit of a chuckle. “I am sorry about Ron, though. I think he overheard Hermione and me talking about it, and he didn’t seem too happy.”

“He’ll get over it.” Ginny leans back against the old couch they are sitting in, the both late and early hour starting to sink in. Harry sits up then and looks at her directly.

“Look, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for not going after you.” Ginny straightens out, a nervous lump appearing in her throat. “Obviously, we’ve both moved past it, and I’m happy for you and Hermione. But I knew then that you needed to go, and I should have gone with you. I don’t want you to think that I didn’t care.”

“We were both so messed up after everything, I’m not sure if I even wanted you to follow.”

“It’s probably for the best that I didn’t, but I’ve always felt guilty. I think I was afraid that I might break you.”

“I’m not a breakable thing, Harry. I never was.”

“I know, I just...I was so used to everyone dying, y’know?” She did. “And I thought that if we stayed together we would only end up hurting each other more. But I’m still sorry too.”

“Thank you, really. But I probably would have messed us up bad anyway when I realized I only liked girls anyways.” The awkwardness melts a bit as they both laugh. Some weight lifts off of Ginny that she hadn’t realized was there. The air around them is lighter now that they’ve acknowledged the past, but Ginny is ready now more than ever to move on.. “I sure hope you and Hermione have the day off from the Ministry,” she says, looking at the sun beams slowly growing against the old floors.

“Actually,” Harry says, biting his lip, “I sort of quit the Ministry.”

“Really?” Ginny sits up now, all the tiredness gone again.

“You’re the only one I’ve told besides Hermione, but yeah, I’m not an auror anymore.”

“How does it feel?”

“Like I’m disappointing everyone,” Harry says with a bitter laugh. “But the truth is I hate it. Every day I half expect to uncover some trail that leads back to Voldemort, and even though I never do, it’s like there’s always a little part of the war playing in my head.”

“I know what you mean,” Ginny says. “Maybe you could try Quidditch like me. I mean, you were always pretty okay…”

“Thanks,” Harry laughs, and o the other side of the room, Katie stirs in her sleep. “Actually, I was thinking about trying something different.” Ginny raises her brows in question, and Harry takes a deep breath. “Well, you know my parents left me quite a bit of money that I never really needed during school, and Sirius left me 12 Grimmauld Place and his portion of the Black estate, so the last few years I’ve had all this money and nothing to really do with it.”

Ginny nods. She can only imagine how much the inheritance of two of the oldest pureblood families might amount to. Harry likely never has to work for the rest of his life, for the rest of ten lives over even.

“12 Grimmauld Place is rather wasted with just me poking around, and you know when Sirius grew up here it was a lot like me and the Dursleys. Neither of us ever had a real home away from Hogwarts.” He stops for a second to think before saying, “What do you think about the Sirius Black Home for Children?”

“As in, turning 12 Grimmauld Place into a charity home?”

“For kids without families or kids whose families don’t accept them, or kids who don’t have anywhere else to go. I’d need help running it, of course, but it might help change Sirius’ legacy too so that people stop can thinking of him as the Death Eater he was framed to be. His name could mean something good.” Harry is playing with the sleeves of his shirt, looking nervous at having said it all out loud.

Ginny looks around at the house they sit in, at the walls that contain centuries of blood purity and violence. She looks at Harry, who spent his whole life trying to save people even when all the adults in their lives failed them. She thinks about all the people who died so that they could live, and how it keeps them both up at night.

“Harry, I think it’s perfect,” she says. Harry smiles, and they hear Hermione coming down the hall with a tray of coffee and biscuits. The three of them talk a little while longer about the Sirius Black Home for Children, excitement lacing their hushed voices, until they fall asleep overlapping on an old couch in an older house. Ginny doesn’t know how any of this is going to work, whether she will still go back to Wales, what she’s going to tell her family, or anything else. But as she falls asleep with Hermione’s head on her shoulder, she thinks that maybe she doesn’t have to have it all figured out. Maybe, just this once, it will all work out fine on its own. Regardless, she’s done running away.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all like my version of the epilogue. Ron or Molly stans, I'm sorry.  
> The George and Ginny sweater switch headcanon was stolen from a post by teh-evil-twin on tumblr.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!  
> xoxo and fuck JKR
> 
> [Buy me a coffee if you enjoyed it?](https://ko-fi.com/L4L4WBXK#)


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